The truthseeker apprentice merely stared at Asher in surprise, clearly not expecting to open their door only to find the one that got away standing on the other side. Asher didn't know what Bordan had told her, but the last time he'd seen Clare had been when he'd used Complete Resilience's second tier ability to escape her chains before vanishing into the astral. While he'd had a couple of conversations with Bordan since then, he hadn't spoken to Clare even once since his great escape.

And based on the way her eyes narrowed, she clearly remembered the same.

"Why do you want to talk to him?" she asked, leaning against the doorframe as if his sudden appearance was no big deal. "Better yet, why do you think he'd want to talk to you?"

"I have my reasons. But before that…" Knowing what was coming, Asher slipped into the astral the moment Clare's glowing chains burst out of the ground and attempted to wrap around him. Now that he knew he could escape them whenever he wanted, he wasn't nearly as terrified of being bound again. But it was the principle of the thing. Taking a few steps back, he returned to the material realm.

"You already know I can get out of your weird skill," he pointed out, trying not to laugh at the annoyed look on her face. "Can we skip the one-sided battle and you just bring me to Bordan?"

"I don't recall the two of us actually fighting," she frowned, her chains pointing dangerously towards him. "You always get captured too quickly."

"Count yourself lucky in that case," he said, unable to help himself from antagonizing her a bit with a cocky grin. Thankfully, before their posturing could turn into a full-on brawl, he heard Bordan's voice from further into the manor.

"Clare, who's at the…"

Bordan's voice tapered off as he stepped up behind Clare and spotted Asher standing in their yard. The truthseeker's eyes flicked between the glowing chains and Asher's dangerous look, and he sighed.

"Clare, just leave him to me. Head on inside."

"Hey, that's not fair," Clare said, actually pouting of all things at her dismissal. With how dangerous Bordan's apprentice was, it was easy to forget she looked as if she was barely pushing twenty.

Asher himself was only a few years older, but in his opinion, one matured a lot in those first couple of years after being a teenager.

"I don't care if it's not fair, it's what I told you to do," Bordan frowned. "I thought I made it clear my orders were not up for debate."

"How am I supposed to learn how to be a truthseeker if you keep sending me away whenever you do the secret stuff?" she grumbled, giving Asher one last glare before vanishing into the house. As soon as she was gone, Bordan crossed his arms and gave Asher a pointed look.

"Well? What is it?"

"Seriously? That's it?" Asher asked, honestly surprised Bordan hadn't at least tried to chop him in half with his famous greatsword before resigning himself to talk to him.

"What, you want to be invited inside?" Bordan asked, raising an eyebrow. "I could put on some tea for you. Maybe try and chop your head off while you're distracted?"

"Honestly, that sounds more normal than you just giving up and talking things out from the get-go," Asher admitted.

"I told you before, I'm well aware I can't kill you," Bordan said, sounding tired. "Clearly, you want something, or you wouldn't have shown back up in Whikoga after all this time. And while I could call for someone who potentially could deal with you, I'm pretty certain you'd be gone again long before they got here. So? What do you want?"

Seeing no need to drag things out, Asher shrugged. "Fair enough. I want to borrow your sending stone so I can call High Prince Donvath and ask him a few questions."

He couldn't help but chuckle as Bordan blinked in surprise, clearly not having expected that answer. "Why in the realms would you want to talk to High Prince Donvath?" he asked, sounding more confused than anything.

"Would you believe I actually just spoke to the man barely even an hour ago?" Asher tried.

"I would if you tell me that again without resisting the effects of my Ring of Truth," Bordan admitted, activating the skill and causing a large, white ring to spread out across the ground with his body at the center.

"Actually… that works for me," Asher shrugged. Taking a deep breath, he relaxed and let the truth flow forth without fighting it. "About an hour ago I was in the forest with Audrey, one of your fellow truthseekers. I was helping her and a noblewoman track down and take care of the demons that had attacked one of the caravans that had left Dormaul a few days prior. After we killed most of the lesser demons and imps, Donvath tried to call for me on Audrey's sending stone. When she didn't pick up, he then tried calling for me on the noblewoman's stone instead. He said something to her, no idea what, and then he spoke with me. He gave me a warning, but part of his message was cut off by the weight of the greater demon that attacked us. I want to call him back up and ask for the rest of his message. Along with some other questions."

The longer Asher spoke, the more surprised Bordan looked, until the man was staring at him with his jaw slightly open. After a moment, he seemed to collect himself, and he sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"By the realms…" letting out a sound that was more of a pained groan than anything, Bordan turned around and motioned for Asher to follow him into the manor. "Alright, come on."

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"You're not going to try and kill me again, are you?"

"No," Bordan sighed. "Despite the fact that I have multiple reasons to execute you where you stand, I can't attack you. Not yet. You recall I told you about how I sometimes deliver messages for the High Prince, and gave you that grace period last we spoke? If you just had a conversation with the man an hour ago, then the same rules apply. I won't attack you until we get all this figured out."

If anyone else had made such a claim, Asher would have been worried about being lured into a trap. But Bordan was a curious man who always spoke the truth and acted as if his word were law. Asher didn't know if it was just because Truth was his origin element and it was bleeding into him and fundamentally changing him, or if he had some other reason, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt Bordan wasn't lying.

Following Bordan into the manor, he spotted Clare leaning against the far wall, still shooting daggers at him with her eyes. Even if he had nothing to worry about from Bordan, it would seem he couldn't fully relax his guard just yet.

"Clare, you might as well join us at this point," Bordan admitted, leading Asher toward the living room and motioning for them both to take a seat. "Just… please, try to remember what we talked about, alright?"

"Of course!" Clare smiled, any trace of her annoyance gone the moment Bordan decided she could join them again.

"I suppose I'll go make that tea after all, and then I need to reach out to High Prince Donvath myself to confirm a few things in private," Bordan explained, glancing between the two of them sitting on opposing couches. "…The living room is still going to be in one piece when I get back, right?"

"Come on, Bordan, we're not kids," Clare frowned, actually shooing the man away. "Go do your thing, we'll be here!"

Asher was pretty certain he managed to catch Bordan murmur something along the lines of 'celestials help me,' before the man turned and headed off into another room. As soon as he was gone, Clare's smile vanished, and she narrowed her eyes at Asher once more.

"Alright, out with it. How did you get out of my Binding Chains?"

"With a skill, how else?" Asher drawled, before deciding he should at least try to pacify the truthseeker apprentice at least a bit. Turning her into an ally was almost certainly impossible at this point, but it wouldn't hurt to potentially try and get in good with someone capable of locking down other people's skills. As far as he knew, he was pretty much the only person in the entire world capable of escaping from her terrifying skill. "What tier is your skill, even? It felt terrifying having those chains lock me out of my own interface."

"Third tier," she said almost without thinking, looking like she didn't care in the slightest that she was revealing potentially critical information about herself. "And I'm not stupid, for the record. I know what you're doing. I just don't care about a lot of their rules in the first place. If you want to play this question-for-question game, you're going to have to actually answer some of mine sooner or later."

"Fair enough," he decided. So long as he didn't give up any information he thought was too valuable, he'd probably never get another opportunity like this one to learn about the truthseekers. "Shoot."

"When you vanish out of thin air… You're not actually teleporting, are you?" she asked. "What are you doing?"

"I'm a realm wanderer," he admitted freely, knowing Bordan already knew how his skill worked. "I'm slipping into the astral realm when I disappear."

"Wait, really? That's awesome!" Clare exclaimed, a wide grin stretching across her face. "Can you bring other people with you? I want to go to another realm!"

"Hold up, my turn," he said, unable to keep the smile off his face at her youthful exuberance. He had no idea what sort of upbringing Clare had, but the girl seemed to flip flop back and forth between snarky teenager and excitable child. He knew she was more than capable of getting serious when it was time to fight or in an emergency, but seeing this side of her was interesting.

"How often do you guys actually talk to the High Prince?"

"Bordan speaks with him every now and again, but I've never actually talked to him myself," Clare admitted. "I've never wanted to talk to him anyway, I'm not a fan of all that stuffy noble stuff. Now answer my question, can you bring other people with you when you travel between realms, and if so, can you show me?"

"Seriously? You'd just let me whisk you into another realm?" Asher asked, raising an eyebrow. "What if I just left you there?"

"Then Bordan wouldn't give you whatever it is you're here for," she said, rolling her eyes as if it were obvious. "Yes or no, answer the question."

"…No, I don't think I can take other people with me," he admitted after a second. He was technically telling the truth, specifically about Astral Dip. But seeing as he could simply place someone in his Personal Rift first if he ever needed to flee with them through the astral, he could very well bring multiple people with him. They'd just never see the astral realm for themselves.

"Damn," she sighed, leaning back in her seat dejected as she waved her hand. "There goes that bucket list item. Your turn."

Asher couldn't exactly think of anything on the fly that didn't come across as anything other than 'so what are your and Bordan's greatest weaknesses?' or 'what's the best way to take down the truthseeker organization as a whole?' Even after slowing down the world with Comprehend's second tier effect, by the time his extra few seconds were up, he still hadn't come up with a good question. With a shrug, he went with what he was most curious about.

"How did you get added to the truthseeker program, anyway? I thought only younger kids were put into it to try and influence their origin element into a rare one, like Truth or Guilt."

"Like I said, I'm a special case," Clare stated bluntly. "I'll probably never be a real truthseeker, because my origin element doesn't match up with theirs, but I'll end up being something like a partner to one. Skills that can interfere with the ability for others to call upon their elements are incredibly rare, even more so than their strange origin elements. The moment they caught wind of my Binding Chains, they snatched me up. I'll probably spend a good few years of my life helping enchant prisons across the kingdom and lending them my skill, but at least I'll be filthy rich for it."

"You're not worried about your skill falling into the wrong hands?"

"Eh, not really," she shrugged. "So long as they pay me a mountain of shards, they can do whatever they want with the chains I enchant. Also, that was two questions, for the record."

"Right, sorry," he said, nodding apologetically toward her. "Your go."

"Hmm…" she paused, looking carefully at him. "…are you seeing anyone? Girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever?"

"What?" Asher blinked, her questions catching him entirely off guard. "Why do you want to know?"

"Why do you think, genius?" she shot back, shaking her head. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to meet people when I'm following a truthseeker around everywhere? You're not half-bad looking, and I've always kinda been into the whole 'bad-boy' type. Not to mention it would probably make Bordan blow a gasket," she snorted. "So, interested?"

"Sorry… I'm actually seeing someone," he found himself saying without thinking. Crap, that wasn't something they already knew… Well, Donvath does actually, and he's their boss, so it's probably not that big a deal.

"Damn it, my life suuucks," Clare sighed, sinking back into the couch. "Do you have any idea how long it's been since I got laid? This job isn't all it's chalked up to be, let me tell you that."

Thankfully, Bordan chose that moment to finally return, his sending stone already glowing and in hand. Before he could say anything, Asher jumped to his feet.

"Oh thank God," Asher said, moving toward the safety of the truthseeker and putting distance between himself and Clare before she could continue telling him about her personal life.

"That bad, huh?" Bordan asked, actually cracking a small smile as his eyes bounced between the two of them. "Sorry for leaving you alone with her, but I just spoke with the High Prince. Donvath has agreed to talk with you."

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